Organizing Stand Up Freezer

[loganwayne]

I've got mine setup with plastic clear totes, and a few totes that i use to process... by the time they are close to empty it hunting season again so it works out good. i also organize my shelves. bottom basket is vegetables from our garden, next up is deer meat left side is the oldest meat and fill from right side to keep from having a lot of 4-5 year old meat that i forgot i had. next shelf is usually over flow deer, and other hoofed wild game so right now there is 2 pig front quarters and a bunch of sausage. next up is fish fresh water on left, salt on right. top shelf is birds and small game. door shelves have specialty cuts and organs like hearts or small batches of different sausages if I'm trying out new recipes so they don't get mixed in the stuff i know i already like. i also have a label maker that i use for vacuum bags, and i label on the butcher paper wrapped stuff with a sharpie everything has what it is, weight, and a date. having it that organized makes it easy for me when my wife calls and asks where something is so she can cook it.

 

[loganwayne]

Flat package all your grind/fresh sausage/etc. You can fit twice the pounds per shelf when doing this.

and it thaws super fast.

 

[Mantistoboggan]

I do all burger on one shelf, roasts and bigger cuts on another and everything else on another

 

[Wymatt22]

Baskets (or plastic bins) work really well if your freezer has tracks they can slide in and out on. Meat avalanches when you open the door aren’t an ideal surprise!

 

[gentleman4561]

I was looking into a freezer alarm too since this is a used freezer. Do you know if theres any thatll send a notification to your phone? Just worried in case I'm out of town.

I have this one, I have been happy with it. Allows you to set alarms for certain temp ranges.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BVLP9C...4041599d15d3d&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

 

[5MilesBack]

Our two uprights all have shelves, so I just stack the shelves. I grind my burger and put in flat bags so they just stack up to the next higher shelf, and I have multiple shelves of burger. Organize everything else on different shelves however you want. Sometimes I use my 7 cu ft chest freezer just for burger and load it up. My 16 cu ft chest freezer has all my frozen milk and other jugs that I use in my coolers in the bottom, and if I need the space, other things in the baskets. But normally I'll try to get everything in the other freezers and unplug this freezer until I need the ice for another hunt.

 

[highcountrymuley]

keep some frozen bottles/jugs in there (dispersed among shelves and door racks) in case you lose power. it will keep things frozen. also the top shelf will thaw first (heat rises...) if freezer gives up or you lose power.
My freezer died about a month ago and the top shelf was lost, bottom stuff still frozen. keep your most valued meats or whatever on bottom.

 

[Blackmamba]

I finally stepped up from a small 5.2 cu ft chest freezer to a 20 cu ft stand up freezer! I wanted to see if you guys had any recommendations for organizing your freezers. Do you guys use baskets or just stack the meat as high as you can? Or should I get more shelves? My processor freezes the burger flat so I want to make sure I dont have a meat avalanche when I open it too. I'll have a bull I shot a week ago as well as a mule deer and antelope from last year. I have another deer and antelope tag this year so I should have quite a bit of meat by the end of the season. I'm probably overthinking it but hate having to search for roasts, steaks or meat from a particular animal.

BTW I will be adding a WKR sticker to the freezer. Hopefully a WKR doesnt steal my FOAL (freezer of a lifetime) while I'm away from the house.

Make fun of me if ya want lol. But there are some ladies on YouTube who post in depth videos on how they organized the families deep freezers. Some use these milk crate looking deals. Pretty cool watch. Tons of ideas.

 

[Boarmaster]

Mine went from this...

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To this. Ordered the plastic trays from Amazon.

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That is the way to do it. Nice job.

 

[darthjaydub]

My shelves are not white wide enough to fit in the brackets. I don’t know why they made it like that. Did anybody else have this problem and what did you do to fix it? I was thinking plywood.

 

[Ridge Runner]

Need to do the same thing. Son and I just got back from fishing in Alaska and had to stuff 200 lbs of fish in mine. 2 elk tags this fall no way I get 1 in there right now. Thing is a sh*t show.

 

[malpal21]

I need to use some of these ideas. Thx for posting.

 

[fishslap]

Mine’s chaos right now. Part of a mule deer, part of a whitetail, some perch and crappie fillets, and now 100# of salmon, halibut, and rockfish. And….I have a moose hunt coming up. Might need some help from you guys. I didn’t want to give up my late season elk/mule deer hunt either. I do have permission to get a “temporary” chest freezer for the garage. We eat wild game for nearly every meal but it’s just the two of us.

 

[Haggin]

Mine’s chaos right now. Part of a mule deer, part of a whitetail, some perch and crappie fillets, and now 100# of salmon, halibut, and rockfish. And….I have a moose hunt coming up. Might need some help from you guys. I didn’t want to give up my late season elk/mule deer hunt either. I do have permission to get a “temporary” chest freezer for the garage. We eat wild game for nearly every meal but it’s just the two of us.
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I'm jealous of all that fish...and, (in your best Chief Brody voice) you're gonna need another freezer. I'm not sure what the yield on a moose is but its definitely not gonna fit in there. You could always send me a few lbs of fish to make space too.

For the current freezer, try to see if there's some totes or baskets for the fish that let them stand up like a display in a store versus laying like bricks. Its a little more efficient dependent on height and there is no frozen stuff hitting your toes when digging through there. You can add newer catch to the back of the row. Just be careful of shelf weight.

I keep my frozen water bottles in the door so they take the brunt of the warm air when the door is opened. I don't generally stand around with the door open like a mouth breather at walmart, but when stocking it, it puts my mind at ease. I also put "whoops, this is getting a bit old so eat it first" stuff in the door too.

 

[mi650]

We need another freezer. Have this 22' upright, 2 garage fridges, and kitchen fridge. All full.

This was after we last got 1/2 a cow. Friends want us to take another half this fall.